Rick Bragg

2 x The Speckled Beauty and His People 

Where I Come From: Stories from the Deep South 

2021 

Weight: 20.13 oz

Method of Disposal: Giving two to dad and one to a friend

Two different people gifted me The Speckled Beauty within weeks of each other, and I felt loved.  I had just finished reading Where I Come From, which I purchased at Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, Ga.  Bragg has a couple essays where he mentions The Speckled Beauty and some other dogs, The Dancing Skinny and Pup McGraw.  I had already started naming dogs at the shelter after them.  We are still on the lookout for our Pup McGraw, but we had a Speck, a Speckled Beauty, and a Dancing Skinny.  I guess I should do a Bragg too.

Everyone seems to love Rick Bragg, and I like to buy at least one book anytime I go into an independent bookstore--or really any bookstore these days--so, when I saw his name on the new arrivals wall, I grabbed it right away.  It was a collection of essays, and it was good.  I did think I would have enjoyed them more by stumbling on them one by one in magazines or online but, realistically, that had not happened often so this was my best chance to read them.  I just could not resist reading them all at once, which might have taken away some of the power of them individually.  I thought about my dad several times, especially when he talked about fishing without the idea of catching anything.  My father often says he is going to feed the fish when he goes fishing.

The Speckled Beauty I enjoyed even more.  I liked the feel of reading it.  It was a slow meander and, though my bad dogs are indoors and I would never dream of doing some of the things with them that I read in the book, like his brother using motor oil to treat mange, I am not unfamiliar with this way of being with dogs.  I have met and talked with dog owners like these (Given, I have told them not to use motor oil). Bragg describes his dog, his brother's dogs, his mama's dogs.  They all have a different outlook on dogs and a way of being with them, and they all clearly love dogs very much.  Bragg and his mom take in only the most pitiful of strays and love them no matter how terrible they are, maybe love them because they are so terrible.

But, this book was not just about a dog or about dogs.  It was about people, about the South, about getting older, about loss.  It was beautiful and sad and funny and easy and hard.  At one point, Bragg caught me so off guard that I just burst into tears.  I was not expecting it at all and was shocked, as I laid in bed next to my sleeping wife, holding this book close to my chest, scaring my own dogs who woke with a start when they heard my sobbing.  And, it was not because the dog died, and it was not because of the dog at all.  In fact, the main dog lives in this one, folks.  That is a rarity in and of itself.  It was because Bragg has a way of letting you in so that you do not just read the words but feel them fully.  His indirect descriptions bring up powerful emotions.  He may be talking about a dog, but through that dog we learn so much about him and his family.  

It is good stuff.

In the Body of the World

In the Body of the World: A Memoir  by Eve Ensler
2013
Weight:8.8 oz
Method of Disposal: Lending Library

I first read The Vagina Monologues in high school, and I loved it.  I walked around reciting "My Angry Vagina" to anyone willing to listen.  In college, I had the chance to meet Eve Ensler and Jane Fonda in one of many Vagina Monologue productions I would go to see.  Attending an all women;s private school, I also began to see some of the more problematic sides of the Monologues and white western feminism.  I would speak to these too and would be guilty of my own mistakes throughout the years.

It did not stop me from going to Charis, our local feminist bookstore, to buy Necessary Targets and have it signed by her at a reading.  I was never again enthralled like I was in high school, but I also never completely lost touch. 

Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across this book at the Dollar Store of all places.  I thought maybe it would be terrible and had been banished to the dollar bin for a reason.  I was wrong.  I enjoyed it and thought Eve did what she does best.  She shows truth no matter how disgusting, vile, negative, hateful, wonderful, idiotic, perfect, exciting, personal it is.  She has been accused of being self-involved, but this is exactly what allows her to dig deep.  Self-involved walks a fine line with self-aware and is often misidentified.  People who attend to themselves, speak powerfully from their own experience, watch their own back, love themselves, care for themselves--particularly women--will be called selfish.  Taught that selfish is wrong.  Even when discussing their own battle with a very scary, very dirty disease like cancer.

I appreciate watching Eve Ensler grow and change in the world.  I may not idolize her in the way I did as a teenager, but I do not really idolize people like that anymore (unless you are Gillian Anderson--kidding, kidding) or think that they must get "it" right all the time and every time.  That they are not fallible.  Eve shows us she is imperfect and allows us to look closely at our imperfect selves too, but she always asks us to do more and to be more aware.  There is nothing wrong with that.